How to Vote in the 2020 Election

Re:How to Vote in the 2020 Election by rayiner on Friday August 14, 2020 @02:10PM (#24161265)

Voting is unfortunately political in the U.S., but I wonder if it would be any different in France or Germany under similar circumstances. 90% of the German electorate are people who were born German citizens with two German parents: https://www.dw.com/en/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-german.... In the U.S., twice as many voters are first or second generation immigrants, and a further 10-15% are members of politically-distinct minority groups. (And of course, out of the people who are third-generation or higher, and not part of a politically-distinct minority, vast numbers are from groups that haven't been here that much longer, and voting was very political for them when they immigrated.)

Would voting in Germany be so non-political under the same circumstances? Obviously, voting shouldn't be political. We should pick voting rules without discriminating based on race, naturalization status, etc. That's the ideal we should strive to achieve. My point is different: human nature being what it is, it's worth asking whether anyone is really doing better under similar circumstances. And if they are doing things better, what are they doing that we could be copying?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Vote in the 2020 Election by rsynnott on Friday August 14, 2020 @02:23PM (#24161408)

If a party in Germany wanted to do the same thing, it would make voting more difficult in rural or urban areas, or east or west, or similar, depending on where its support was. This sort of manipulation of outcomes via some form of discrimination is _possible_ everywhere. The US does seem unusual for a developed country in that there are major organised attempts to _reduce the number of people who vote_, though. And possibly unique anywhere in that senior elected officials have mentioned this in the context of it being a good thing.

Generally, in a democracy, more voting is, at least publicly, considered better (in private, of course, some party officials might disagree, but the backlash if they tried to _do_ anything about it would be unthinkable).

I actually wonder to what extent this is a function of how democracy developed in the US vs everywhere. At least in the popular mythology, voting went from available to all male members of the ethnic majority, to all members of the ethnic majority, to everyone (this isn't actually quite true; a number of southern states had property qualifications for whites pre-civil war). Whereas a more common pattern of development elsewhere was the vote for practically no-one -> the vote for a very few (property qualifications) -> the vote for all men -> the vote for everyone. Most people in Europe will need to look back no more than a few generations to see where _their_ family wasn't able to vote, which may cause people to be more defensive of the institution.

There's also the example of history; most of Europe's 20th century totalitarian regimes screwed with voting early in their development.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Vote in the 2020 Election by rayiner on Friday August 14, 2020 @02:32PM (#24161535)

You're glossing over my question. If Germany was more heterogeneous, with more political conflict between groups, would folks in Germany be trying such measures?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Vote in the 2020 Election by rsynnott on Friday August 14, 2020 @02:48PM (#24161727)

Half of Germany was a communist country until 30 years ago while the other half was a wealthy democracy. Not sure how much more heterogenous than that you get, politics-wise. There remain fairly dramatic political differences between the former east and west.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Vote in the 2020 Election by rayiner on Friday August 14, 2020 @06:43PM (#24164155)

My second hand understanding, though, is that west Germans consider East Germans to be the same people and the integration was viewed as a reunification. Not quite the same as different groups who perceive themselves as distinct and with conflicting interests.

[ Parent | on HN ]